Bill Brownstein: Think of it as a book club for movies

Bill Brownstein, THE GAZETTE10.02.2014

Cinémagique founder and director Peter Pearson dispatches two blogs a week, containing links for trailers and synopses and reviews for films that members will soon be seeing. Admission cost for each screening — as well as the analysis and Q&A — is $13.50, about the same price as a regular movie ticket.Allen McInnis
/ Montreal Gazette

Cinémagique founder and director Peter Pearson speaks to the audience before the screening of a film at the AMC Theatre in Montreal on Monday, Sept. 29, 2014. “There are so many film festivals in town, but I haven’t been to one with the same sort of captive audiences and the same sort of discussions with all kinds of points of view,” says film critic Jorge Gutman.Allen McInnis
/ Montreal Gazette

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MONTREAL — Nary a week goes by in this town when there isn’t a film festival. But there is one festival in this cinephile-mad metropolis that goes on nearly year-round, 35 weeks a year.

Cinémagique, now in its seventh year of operation, has been quietly providing premières of everything from arty Euro to highly touted American indie to homegrown Québécois fare to its members on Monday evenings at the Forum Cineplex. In addition, analysis of the films is provided by experts in the field — directors, writers, actors, producers et al — as well as a Q&A with the audience following the screenings.

Among the gems that have been shown over the years are Pina, the 3-D ballet pic by Wim Wenders, Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech and The White Ribbon. In fact, Cinémagique has screened every foreign film Oscar nominee for the last three years. Added to the list could soon be Xavier Dolan’s acclaimed Mommy, which was recently presented.

The marvellous Love is Strange made its Montreal debut at Cinémagique a few weeks ago, as did Richard Linklater’s brilliant Boyhood. And soon to make its local bow will be St. Vincent with the ever-manic Bill Murray.

The appearances of Dullea and Dryden make sense, since Peter Pearson, the mastermind behind Cinémagique and still its leader, worked with both of them. He directed Dullea in Paperback Hero (1973), and he also helmed the award-winning Ken Dryden TV miniseries Home Game (1989). Pearson will be presented with the Distinguished Service Award by the Directors Guild of Canada on Oct. 25 in Toronto.

Pearson, formerly the executive director of Telefilm Canada, decided to keep his passion for cinema burning after calling it a career on the other side of the camera.

“The concept just fell into my lap,” Pearson explains. “I was teaching a course on film at McGill’s Institute of Learning and Retirement and, after doing courses for a few years, I got bored of teaching about only old films, particularly since to me this is really the golden age of movies.

“We may not realize this, just because Hollywood has given up making good movies. But there are great movies coming out elsewhere. It’s almost similar to the way it was in the car business with three companies from the U.S. dominating the market. And just as the car business grew beyond the U.S., so has the movie business expanded.”

So Pearson got in touch with distributors of more exotic offerings and got them to go along with his concept of screening premières of their films to audiences in search of something outside the mainstream. And what started with a dozen or so diehard film fans has now mushroomed to close to 950 members — and Pearson figures that could climb to 2,000 within a few years.

“I quickly realized local distributors didn’t have the same funds to promote their movies the way Hollywood does,” Pearson says. “I also realized distributors aren’t always wild about festivals, particularly when their films get shown and reviewed months ahead of their release in theatres. There’s no promotional value for them there.

“I was reading Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point at the time. Gladwell said the best marketing is word of mouth. So I was able to prevail upon the distributors by telling them I could fill a theatre and then get viewers to spread the word about the movie to four of their friends. And then when the film opens on a Friday, it draws enough people to make enough money for the film to go at least another week or two.”

Members of Cinémagique come from all walks — young and old, Anglos and Francos, professionals from inside and outside the film industry. Plus, Pearson, who began his career as a journalist with the Timmins Daily Press in 1961, dispatches two blogs a week, containing links for trailers and synopses and reviews for films they will soon be seeing. Admission for each screening — as well as the analysis and Q&A — is $13.50, about the same price as a regular movie ticket.

“I deliberately go for the most difficult subject matters around. I want members to get insight into communities they don’t know. What I quickly learned is that they are not interested in seeing mainstream Hollywood movies, which they can see any time if they are interested. So our formula seems to be working well.

“Sure, most members are movie buffs, but we draw others, like a big group from the Montreal General Hospital, who are not necessarily big fans per se but who basically love coming out for their one evening a week where they can get together and share the movie experience. What makes it attractive, though, is that we control the experience. There are not five commercials before. There are not a whole bunch of trailers they’re not interested in.”

And they don’t have to leave the theatre right after the film. They stay for the analysis and Q&A, and following that they repair upstairs at the Forum bar for more schmoozing and libations.

“It’s like an intimate, ongoing film festival,” Pearson says. “I haven’t found anything like it in the world.”

Cinémagique members share his enthusiasm.

Cinematographer Bert Tougas has been attending since Day 1. “What’s amazing is how this has grown from a handful to hundreds and hundreds,” he notes.“(Pearson) has such a tremendous knowledge and love of film. I love his choices for screenings. Honestly, I have yet to see a dull film here, and there have been some awfully obscure choices.”

Marvels teacher Lesley Lang: “His taste in movies is impeccable. What I love is that he not only gets first-run movies but also movies that have never run at local theatres — which are just as impressive.”

“There are so many film festivals in town, but I haven’t been to one with the same sort of captive audiences and the same sort of discussions with all kinds of points of view,” says film critic Jorge Gutman.

Pearson has been so buoyed by the enthusiasm of members that he is contemplating expanding the series to two screenings a night. “I’m having such a blast,” he says. “Honestly, it’s just a privilege to be able to see great movies as work. But the real challenge is that at 76, can I keep at this for another 15 years?”

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